How to create Educational Escape rooms? Strategies for creation and design

Educational Escape rooms are games designed for teaching consisting on challenges played in groups where the participants are asked to solve a series of clues and puzzles in a limited amount of time to "escape the room". In recent years Escape rooms have attracted the interest of educators and institutions for their ability to foster the development of valuable skills, considered critical for the job market such as teamwork, leadership, creative thinking, communication and a variety of soft skills necessary for professional success. In teaching, the design of Escape rooms is still in its embryonic stage, but new studies are emerging. As several authors report the learning is absorbed more effectively by students with active participation, practices and discussions on content [21],[4]. These skills are extensively developed in the application of the Escape rooms which are planned and designed specifically for each content, according to the need and learning objectives. The design and development of these Escape rooms is a crucial phase of the process and a challenge for many educators who wish to apply these activities in the classroom. In order to offer a timely contribution to this body of knowledge, this article synthesises the creation and design of Escape rooms in an educational environment, based on existing literature. To this end, the study builds on selected examples of success and some references and tools for creating Escape rooms.